Tina Minkowitz

University of Oslo, Department of Public and International Law, Alumna

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Author of Reimagining Crisis Support: Matrix, Roadmap and Policy - please visit https://www.reimaginingcrisissupport.org.

President of the Center for the Human Rights of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry, www.chrusp.org.

Projects of CHRUSP: Self-study course on the CRPD from Survivor of Psychiatry Perspective - http://www.crpdcourse.org, and Absolute Prohibition Campaign - https://www.absoluteprohibition.org.

Blog on Mad in America: https://www.madinamerica.com/author/tminkowitz/

Personal blog: https://tastethespring.wordpress.com

See also https://independent.academia.edu/TMinkowitz
Address: Center for the Human Rights of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry

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The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Right to Be Free from Nonconsensual Psychiatric Interventions: An Update on Its Interpretation by UN Mechanisms

This chapter is an update to Minkowitz's "The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons ... more This chapter is an update to Minkowitz's "The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Right to be Free from Nonconsensual Psychiatric Interventions" first published in 2007 (and appearing in this volume). It demonstrates that the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (official monitoring body for the Convention) and UN Special Rapporteurs on Torture have confirmed much of the interpretation and approach I argued for, including a strong and clear prohibition of nonconsensual psychiatric interventions, applying the torture framework, and reparations.

Accepted version of the manuscript, cite as Minkowitz, T. (2024). The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Right to be free from nonconsensual Psychiatric Interventions: An update on its interpretation by UN mechanisms. In A. Cantú, E. Maisel, & C. Ruby (Eds.), Institutionalized Madness: The Interplay of Psychiatry and Society’s Institutions (pp. 119–135). Ethics Press.

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Recognizing forced and coerced psychiatric interventions against women, men and children as a harmful cultural practice

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Advancing the rights of users and survivors of psychiatry using the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

CRPD and transformative equality

International Journal of Law in Context, Feb 15, 2017

This reflection responds primarily to the papers on legal agency and state intervention, with bri... more This reflection responds primarily to the papers on legal agency and state intervention, with brief comments on the two other papers. The concept of transformative equality, developed in jurisprudence under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), can promote a deeper understanding of the rights of persons with disabilities.1In particular, it is useful to address power relations between disabled and non-disabled persons not only with respect to family members and medical professionals, but also in the institutions of law and the state.

The Reception of Article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in the United States (New York), Mexico, and Peru

Social Science Research Network, 2017

In this paper I examine the reception of Article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons wi... more In this paper I examine the reception of Article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in the courts of two domestic jurisdictions: United States (New York) and Mexico, and through legislative reform in Peru. Adopting a normative standpoint, I compare the value of leading court cases in New York and Mexico as a step towards implementation of the international standard, followed by a summary of Peru’s reform proposal which I believe substantially fulfills international obligations. After this Introduction, I begin with an overview of Article 12 and a criterion by which to assess domestic reception, following which I discuss each jurisdiction separately, addressing the status of international human rights law and CRPD in particular in the jurisdiction, and focusing on one central case and subsequent developments.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Right to Be Free from Nonconsensual Psychiatric Interventions

Social Science Research Network, Apr 21, 2007

Female Autonomy vs Gender Identity A critical analysis of gender identity in CEDAW jurisprudence and the Yogyakarta Principles

This paper undertakes to address an emerging conflict between women’s human rights and gender ide... more This paper undertakes to address an emerging conflict between women’s human rights and gender identity rights, using tools provided by the human rights framework and by the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and its associated jurisprudence. CEDAW jurisprudence is divided, with support for gender iden- tity rights coexisting alongside a theoretical approach to equality and non-discrimination that supports the self-understanding of women as a political class that experiences both sex-based and gender-based discrimination. This paper begins with a brief overview, then moves to a discussion of the term women in the CEDAW text. It next turns to critical analysis of the Yogyakarta Principles on Sexual Orientation and Gender identity, a civil society document that is widely referenced for its articulation of a rights-based framework in this area. Finally it examines gender identity under CEDAW and posits that women’s human rights rests on a principle of female autonomy, or the existential independence of women from men in all areas of life, such that neither the class of women nor their rights can be unilaterally redefined without their assent. The paper concludes with recommendations for an approach to gender identity under CEDAW as an expressive right that should be promoted as part of the obligation to eliminate sex-role stereotyping, without according rights under CEDAW to male persons. This paper, a thesis submitted for the LLM program in Public International Law at the University of Oslo, is also available on the University&#39;s website at https://www.duo.uio.no/handle/10852/54626.

Dreams of justice

Policy Press eBooks, Jul 11, 2018

Reparation for Psychiatric Violence: A Call to Justice

Cambridge University Press eBooks, Aug 31, 2021

Grounded in my personal experience as a survivor of psychiatric violence, I take a historical app... more Grounded in my personal experience as a survivor of psychiatric violence, I take a historical approach to the recent development of norms that support a demand for reparations for psychiatric violence. I introduce the reader to the advocacy by the World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry (WNUSP) that led to the establishment of norms in international law that require the abolition of forced psychiatric interventions, and discuss the confirmation by international human rights mechanisms of our position that such interventions are acts of ill treatment and/or torture. Following that, I share key advances and challenges in national implementation, and my proposal for a social model of crisis support to fill a gap in our advocacy and to respond to current challenges. Finally I set out the argument for reparations and indicate the forms it might take.

Dreams of justice

Social Policy First Hand

Forced psychiatric interventions: right to remedy and reparation

Open Mind, 2012

This is an author's manuscript for the article published in the January-February 2012 issue of Op... more This is an author's manuscript for the article published in the January-February 2012 issue of Open Mind: The Mental Health Magazine, which is not otherwise available.
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The international right to remedy and reparation can be used as a framework to demand an end to psychiatric abuse, apologies, services and support for victims/survivors, and changes in social institutions and official policy. The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) is being used by UN human rights mechanisms as authoritative guidance superseding earlier standards that are less protective of human rights and this gives a good basis for these demands in international law and several potential avenues for advocacy.

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Tina Minkowitz Intervention in the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities' Panels on Deinstitutionalization, Panel No. 2 on Reparations for Institutionalization

This statement combines a legal-political view and a personal view of the reparations obligations... more This statement combines a legal-political view and a personal view of the reparations obligations of CRPD states parties, based on the Guidelines on Deinstitutionalization. It emphasizes the immediate obligations in the Guidelines that can fulfill the state's responsibility to 'take effective measures for the cessation of violations'; discusses the complementarity of deinstitutionalization and reparations processes; and addresses certain harms and needs from one survivor's perspective.

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DISABILITY-BASED SYSTEMS OF INCARCERATION AND CONTROL

In discussions about disability and criminal justice, it is inevitable that the question arises o... more In discussions about disability and criminal justice, it is inevitable that the question arises of disability-based forms of control and incarceration outside the criminal justice system.

Involuntary psychiatric interventions Involuntary commitment to psychiatric facilities can take place as civil commitment or as a medicalized imprisonment in relation to criminal proceedings. Involuntary administration of psychotropic drugs, electroshock or other measures is performed in these facilities with the aim of altering the person's mind, emotions, and behavior. Such alteration is viewed by psychiatry as treatment for conditions it describes as 'mental illness'. Involuntary 'treatment' also takes place in the criminal justice system itself, and is increasingly performed outside institutions through court-ordered compulsory treatment in the community. Involuntary commitment and involuntary 'treatment' regimes are authorized in most countries of the world by legislation, usually in the form of a Mental Health Act. With or without these legislative regimes, coercion is common in psychiatric settings and other institutions even beyond formal involuntary measures.

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Legal Capacity and Law: Why It Matters

Legal Capacity and Law: Why It Matters Legal capacity is a patriarchal construct that enables th... more Legal Capacity and Law: Why It Matters Legal capacity is a patriarchal construct that enables the maintenance of a society based on competition rather than cooperation. Those who are in a dominant position (male, white, non-disabled etc.) take for granted their own "soundness of mind" and presume to judge that of others, denying those Others the status of actors in the legal system and making them instead passive dependents. Madness has been and continues to be a primary ground to deny people the right to act for themselves: to vote, to marry, to make a will or a contract, and most importantly to make decisions about health care and residence. The "capacity standard" is increasingly being used as a way to enforce compulsory psychiatric treatment on those who do not want it, by judging them incapable of making a rational decision about such treatment. What is wrong with this picture? The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities enacts a diffe...

CRPD and transformative equality

International Journal of Law in Context, 2017

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Legal Capacity from a Psychosocial Disability Perspective: A Discussion Paper

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2014

This discussion paper addresses the problematic nature of legal capacity as it affects people wit... more

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Why Mental Health Laws Contravene the CRPD – An Application of Article 14 with Implications for the Obligations of States Parties

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2011

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CRPD Article 12 and the Alternative to Functional Capacity: Preliminary Thoughts Towards Transformation

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2013

with Disabilities, a body that is designated under the CRPD to interpret and apply the treaty. 1 ... more with Disabilities, a body that is designated under the CRPD to interpret and apply the treaty. 1 Following that is my introductory note on interpretive issues and on the purpose of this essay. Article 12 Equal recognition before the law 1 I have chosen the Concluding Observations on Spain, Hungary and China to illustrate the Committee's approach. The CO on Spain was the first time the Committee used the formulation, "replace substituted decision-making by supported decision-making, which respects the person's autonomy, will and preferences." This encapsulated the core requirements of Article 12 and has been used in all subsequent Concluding Observations. The CO on Hungary was the first to establish that legal capacity includes the right, on one's own, to make decisions in particular areas of life such as free and informed consent to medical treatment. The CO on China established a skeleton version of what is necessary for implementation in a legal system, particularly with reference to 12.3 and 12.4, the premise of universal legal capacity, and the relationship of support to accommodation.

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Norms and Implementation of CRPD Article 12

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2010

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Recognizing forced and coerced psychiatric interventions against women, men and children as a harmful cultural practice

It is time to recognize the practices of involuntary diagnosis, involuntary institutionalization ... more It is time to recognize the practices of involuntary diagnosis, involuntary institutionalization and involuntary treatment in psychiatry as harmful cultural practices emanating from a worldview that separates human beings into scientists and scientific objects, and that, by claiming legitimacy for itself as “scientific,” seeks to erase the worldviews of individuals who reject their objectification. The harmful cultural practices of psychiatry affect both individuals in the countries where psychiatry originated (in the west), and individuals and communities throughout the world where psychiatry is extending its sphere of influence. This paper addresses involuntary (forced, compulsory, without free and informed consent of the person concerned) psychiatry, because part of the harm comes from the erasure of personhood that results from the legalization of violence. However, the methods of modern psychiatry are intertwined with the laws that confer social and legal approval to their use ...

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Tina Minkowitz

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